The Power of Vision: Seeing Beyond the Present
One of the most essential yet often underestimated qualities a founder must have in the early stages of launching a startup is vision. Vision isn’t just about having a great idea; it’s about imagining a future that doesn’t yet exist and relentlessly working to make it a reality.
Vision means seeing what could be—driven by creativity and dedicated to building long-term solutions that reshape industries or solve profound challenges. It’s the ability to look beyond immediate needs and build toward a future that others may not yet recognize.
I recently attended the early rounds of a business plan competition, where it became clear that some founders had genuine vision, while others presented innovative but more incremental solutions to existing problems. Vision in a startup isn’t just about addressing today’s challenges—it’s about disrupting entire industries and creating new paradigms. (A nod to Clay Christensen for that insight.)
When I founded Black Duck Software, the vision was that open source could revolutionize the software industry and how enterprises develop technology. Our goal was to make using open source so seamless that companies of any size could leverage it without needing legal, architectural, or security teams to bless it. It wasn’t just about creating a product but was also about setting a new standard for how enterprises approach the software development life cycle.
However, vision isn’t just about seeing the future—it’s about convincing others to see it, too. One of the most complex parts of the journey was articulating how Black Duck could unlock new ways of structuring and developing software that wasn’t immediately obvious to dev teams then. People understood the value of open source projects, but not everyone grasped why building with open source communities could transform their business.
I was often asked, "How did you come up with the vision and business idea?" My answer was simple: open source was well-established as an enterprise-class solution – especially Linux and Apache. At the time, organizations relied on auditors, consultants, and lawyers to navigate the complexities. Black Duck's vision was to empower enterprises to scale open source in a simple to use, transformative and enduring way.
Initially, potential customers, partners, employees, and especially VCs struggled to understand the vision. I took it upon myself to be more transparent and straightforward. Gradually, customers began to get it, partly because open source was free, and some projects were indispensable (think LAMP stack, for those familiar). Validating the future of open source was challenging, particularly with VCs, and I had to self-fund the company for almost two years. The visionary VC who truly "got it" was a former Microsoft executive, Roger Heinen, who understood disruption and scaling a software company. The others that followed didn’t fully grasp the potential; to them, it was just another deal.
Two key challenges with vision are integrating it into the company’s messaging from the outset and through later stages—especially in marketing. At Black Duck, both sales and marketing initially struggled to communicate this effectively to customers and the broader audience. Second, it's crucial to continually revisit and reinforce the founding principles and culture—a concept many VCs tend to overlook in favor of quarterly ARR gains.
As a founder, holding onto your vision means constantly pushing boundaries, even when others may not yet see or understand it. I learned that vision was one of the reasons Synopsys ultimately acquired Black Duck. While it wasn’t explicitly mentioned, I knew one or two executives at the acquiring company "got it."
Reflecting on my years of founding companies – including especially Black Duck, investing, serving on boards, and teaching entrepreneurship, I’ve come to realize that every successful venture was grounded in the same principle: not just solving immediate problems but shaping a future others couldn’t yet see. When vision is clear, execution becomes the pathway to making it real. A founder’s role is to paint a compelling vision that others follow and believe in a future that hasn’t been created yet.